Shakti

Born in the mid-1970s around the British guitarist John McLaughlin and Indian musicians from the North and South Indian classical traditions, Shakti develops an acoustic form of jazz fusion in which jazz improvisation dialogues with Carnatic and Hindustani music. The group takes shape in 1973, initially under the name Turiyananda Sangit, before adopting Shakti with a lineup marked by L. Shankar on violin, Zakir Hussain on tabla and T. H. Vikku Vinayakram on percussion, after an initial stint with Ramnad Raghavan. This configuration gives rise to a highly mobile sound, based on rhythmic cycles, exchanges between strings and percussion, and a constant flow between writing and improvisation. Shakti releases Shakti with John McLaughlin in 1976, then A Handful of Beauty in 1976 and Natural Elements in 1977, while performing on international stages such as the Montreux Jazz Festival. After the project's end in the late 1970s and occasional reunions in India in the early 1980s, the spirit of the group continues with Remember Shakti from 1997. Shakti then reforms in 2020 with John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, V. Selvaganesh and Ganesh Rajagopalan, and returns to the studio with This Moment in 2023, confirming the continuity of a musical language where jazz, classical Indian music, and forms of acoustic fusion intersect.